Sukrita Paul Kumar (Kenya/india) was born and brought up in Kenya and is at present living in Delhi. She held the Aruna Asaf Ali Chair at the University of Delhi, till recently. An Honorary Fellow of International Writing Programme, University of Iowa (USA) and a former Fellow of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, she was also an invited poet in residence at Hong Kong Baptist University. She has published several collections of poems in English including, Folds of Silence, Without Margins, Rowing Together and Apurna. Her poems selected and translated by the eminent lyricist Gulzar has been published by HarperCollins as a bilingual book, Poems Come Home. Sukrita’s major critical works include Narrating Partition, Conversations on Modernism.
Deutsch
NACH WAHRHEIT
Der abstrakteste Berg
Da draußen, inmitten der Wolken
Ist in der Tat am geerdetsten,
am konkretesten
Wie meine Trauer
maskiert von fröhlichem Tanzen
Und Gelächter inmitten den Menschen
*
Was für ein Orchester, was für eine Harmonie
Die Koels und Elstern als führende Stimmen
Der Klickschlag männlicher Zikaden
Mit vibrierenden und brummenden Bäuchen
Der gutturale Ruf der Eule
inmitten des Zwitscherns der Spatzen
Alle Musik läuft davon
Raag Avian verfällt in ein Getöse
Der Traum wird zum Albtraum
Wenn es kein Bissen in der weit
geöffneten Schüssel des versunkenen Kindes gibt
Und das nackte Mädchen keine Deckung
vor männlichen Triebtätern erhält
Übersetzt von Ishan Mustajab Shah
English
POST TRUTH
The most abstract mountain
Out there, amidst the clouds
Is in fact the most grounded,
the most concrete
Like my sorrow
masked by joyful dancing
And laughter amidst people
*
What an orchestra, what harmony
The koels and magpies as lead voices
The clicking beat by male cicadas
With abdomens vibrating and buzzing
The guttural hooting of the owl
amidst the chirrup of the sparrows
All music goes astray
Raag Avian crumbles into a din
The dream becomes a nightmare
When there’s not a morsel in
The gaping bowl of the shrunken child
And the naked girl gets no cover
From male predators